‘The Future is Bright For Hopewell Athletics’: Jordan Sirianni

In order to give yourself a chance to succeed at anything you do in life, two things are needed: a passion for what you’re doing and talent.

Hopewell’s Jordan Sirianni has both of those and it’s no coincidence that she’s making a name for herself on the volleyball court.

Hopewell Sports Nation is happy to feature Sirianni as the next athlete in our continuing series of “The Future is Bright For Hopewell Athletics”. Sirianni is a junior on Coach Terry Borkovic’s Hopewell Volleyball team and a key figure in the Vikings qualifying for the WPIAL Playoffs for the 25th consecutive season.

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Over the weekend, HSN had a chance to talk with Sirianni about volleyball and two things that stood out were: 1) her love for the sport and 2) the impact that her older sister has had and continues to have on her. It’s very evident how much Jordan loves volleyball and her sister.

“I started playing volleyball when I was in elementary school because my sister was always playing,” said Sirianni. “But I didn’t start personally competing until I was in 7th grade. I played for St. James in Sewickley in 7th and 8th grade because I went to Fatima, and they didn’t have a volleyball team. Then in my 8th grade year for club volleyball, I played at Sky League, and I’ve been there ever since. Plus, I’ve obviously been playing for the Hopewell High School volleyball team.”

With the high school season finished, Sirianni is currently competing with the Sky Elite National Club Team. This keeps her very busy both with practices and also with the national tournaments across the country that they compete in. Lots of traveling involved as they’ll be at one or two tournaments a month through Memorial Day.

“The club director at Sky is a Hopewell grad, she played at Hopewell for Coach Borkovic, so that’s how I kind of found it. We practice three times a week and we have tournaments from January till May, unless you go to Nationals in June and July. I really like playing for Sky because of the amount of work you get with them and the opportunities that you receive from being a part of their organization.”

”That’s one of the reasons that I believe I’ve been able to get better in volleyball is because of the coaches there,” said Sirianni. “It’s also nice to be able to compete with different girls your own age because in high school, you’re competing against a bunch of different ages. To have the opportunity to go around the country and compete against players your own age to see how you do is pretty cool.”

The Sirianni family has a strong history in different sports. Being so athletic, I asked Jordan what originally drew her to volleyball and not another sport?

“Honestly, I was mainly just my sister,” said Sirianni. “Just watching her compete and have so much fun, I just knew that’s just what I wanted to do. I used to play basketball but for me, nothing is better than volleyball. It’s my favorite thing to do, it’s really the only thing I do. I’d really like to thank my sister for that.”

The sister that Jordan has mentioned is Jenna Sirianni. She started playing volleyball in 8th grade for Pittsburgh Three Rivers (Club team) and then played for Pittsburgh Magic for a bit. Jenna attended Hopewell from 2015 until 2019. Following high school Jenna played volleyball and track and field in college at Baldwin-Wallace (in Cleveland).

“She is probably my biggest supporter and I have always been her biggest supporter,” said Jordan. “Having her support has always been something awesome to have.”

“I’ve always felt some pressure to try and live up to the expectations and standard that she’s set. My goal is to try and be better than her. Her and I have a friendly competition of trying to be better than one another. We’re both super competitive so that we can try and be the best player possible.”

Jordan is getting better every season and is looking forward to her last season at Hopewell and has a big goal that she’d like to achieve.

“Critiquing my own game, I believe that I have a high volleyball IQ in knowing the court very well and know where the other team is playing on defense and choosing out the spots to hit to,” said Sirianni. “Also, my serve receive is very strong, which is one of the hardest skills in any sport because they’re serving at you like 30 miles an hour and you have to try and make it perfect. Serve receive is something that I’ve always worked on.”

“I’ve really tried to work on my serve to try and make it perfect. I think I have a pretty good serve now.”

“I’d really like to continue playing volleyball in college, especially since everyone in my family has played a sport in college. As far as a team goal this year, I’d really like to win a playoff game. For the past two years that I’ve been on varsity, we’ve made the playoffs but haven’t won a game. As far as an individual goal, I’d like to make first team All-Section and All-WPIAL team.”

With the work ethic and talent that Jordan has, all of those things are very possible.